Goggle and Swim Cap Distributions

Own Your Float was founded on a belief that's often overlooked: every child deserves water safety education to stay safe — swim lesson or not. That's why we make it a priority to reach kids directly in preschool and elementary school classrooms.

The reality is many young children will encounter water before they ever get a swim lesson.

But nothing replaces knowing how to swim. Research shows formal swim lessons can lower a young child's drowning risk by as much as 88%.

To close that gap, Own Your Float partners with camps and Boys & Girls Clubs to put free goggles and swim caps directly into kids' hands, because access starts with the basics.

Thanks to generous donors, proceeds from Captain Goggles Saves the Day!, and support from FINIS, Inc. and Speedo/Pentland, we've been able to reach over 1,500 young swimmers — from our largest distributions of several hundred each at the Dunlevy Milbank Boys & Girls Club in Harlem, the Harlem YMCA, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Capital Area, to our smallest, delivered one classroom and one library story time at a time, spanning NYC to Plantation, Florida.

We believe that a pair of goggles and a swim cap in hand is often the first step toward a swim lesson, and a daily reminder at home to sign up.